Tis Mercy All: The power of mercy in a polarised world

By Natalie Williams

'Natalie writes with the raw honesty and authenticity... This book will inspire and challenge you to rediscover that mercy is at the heart of our spiritual formation.'
Olivia Amartey, Elim

In a world of polarising politics, cancel culture and social media virtue signalling, we risk losing any sense of what it means to have mercy. And yet Jesus calls us to 'be merciful, just as your Father is merciful' (Luke 6.36).

In this thoughtful and practical book, Natalie Williams explores what it means to be a true mercy-bringer. First, we need to develop a deep appreciation of the mercy of God, which is more astonishing than we dare to believe. As the old hymn says, 'tis mercy all when it comes to God's dealings with his children. Once we have understood that, it will transform the way we see God, ourselves and the world around us. We will be drawn closer to Jesus and, as a result, we will reflect his mercy to a world that desperately needs it.

'Challenging yet encouraging, moving yet refreshing, and theologically rich yet practically accessible.'
Andrew Wilson, King’s Church London

'A much-needed book from an important voice for our times.'
Graham Miller, London City Mission

Contents
Introduction
Part 1: 'A God Merciful'
Part 2: Our struggle to 'love mercy'
Part 3: Merciful thinking
Part 4: Merciful actions
Conclusion

• Language: English
• Publisher: Form
• Release date: Jun 20, 2024
• ISBN: 9780281089192

Natalie Williams

Natalie Williams grew up in relative poverty in Hastings, and was a journalist before becoming Head of Communications and Policy at Jubilee+, a national Christian charity that equips churches to meaningfully engage with those in need in their communities. She leads social action at King’s Church in Hastings & Bexhill, and her previous books are The Myth of the Undeserving Poor, A Church for the Poor and A Call To Act.

Book preview

Introduction

My friend Jo was killed by a lorry driver while she was cycling to work. She was thirty-four.

The driver was reversing his 14-tonne lorry – a cement mixer – around a corner when he hit her. He was arrested for causing death by careless driving. His vehicle had three mirrors on the left side, so there was no blind spot. He had no excuse. He had simply, and tragically, failed to pay proper attention. He did not see Jo on her bike, despite other drivers sounding their horns and pedestrians trying to alert him.

After pleading guilty, the driver was warned by the judge that he faced a custodial sentence – he was likely to go to prison. But between the verdict and the sentencing, Jo’s parents, Paul and Charlotte, wrote to the judge, asking him to show mercy.

Because of this, the judge didn’t send the driver to jail. He relented, saying, ‘They do not seek retribution and have recognised how this has affected you.’

Isn’t that incredible? If Jo were my daughter, I’m pretty sure I would not have been thinking about how the driver was affected. I would have been more concerned with how I was affected!

The driver could have been given the maximum sentence of five years in prison. However, my friend’s parents extended mercy to the man who had caused their daughter’s death. As a result, he was given a suspended sentence and community work, and was banned from driving for three years. There were consequences for his actions – in losing his driving licence he lost his livelihood of forty-three years – but he was shown mercy.¹

National and local media covered the outcome of the court case. One newspaper headline read: ‘Death driver shown mercy.’ It made national news because mercy of this magnitude is rare in society today. In fact, mercy of any magnitude is scarce. We live in an increasingly polarised world, where even hearing the word ‘mercy’ is uncommon. So when we hear about it, it is powerful, it is challenging, and sometimes it is even offensive. We want justice, not mercy, and we struggle to see how both can exist in the same space.

This is true even in the Church, where we should be intimately acquainted with both the mercy of God and his call on us to be mercy-bringers to those around us. I often have the privilege of speaking to congregations on this subject. Whenever I include the story of Paul and Charlotte’s mercy towards the lorry driver, people respond with astonished gasps. We are amazed. We haven’t heard many mercy stories like this, much less seen mercy demonstrated in our day-to-day lives.

But even radical, undeserved, costly mercy like this should not be so rare among us as followers of Jesus, who have received mercy through Christ’s death on the cross. It should be a defining characteristic of who we are. It should set us apart from the society around us and cause people to look on in wonder. It should be one of the primary ways people see Jesus through us.

In my early years as a Christian, I often heard mercy described as being spared a deserved punishment (as in the case of the driver who caused Jo’s death). Mercy definitely is that, but I believe it is bigger and broader and deeper and richer. There are three Hebrew words in the Old Testament that can be rendered as ‘mercy’: rakham, khannun and khesed – and most English versions of the Bible translate all three as ‘mercy’ in some verses.² In the Greek New Testament, the word ‘mercy’ is always derived from a single word, eleos, but each of the Hebrew words can be accurately translated as ‘mercy’, depending on the context.³

These various words show us that biblical mercy is about much more than escaping punishment. It overlaps with grace, steadfast love and compassion, with unfathomable kindness and abundant generosity. This is what we see throughout Scripture: evil tyrant kings are shown the kind of mercy that withholds the wrath they deserve (Manasseh in 2 Chronicles 33), and a young virgin girl is shown the kind of mercy that bestows upon her the incredible gift of bearing, raising, mothering and loving the Son of God (Mary in Luke 1:26–55).

A better definition of mercy goes beyond sparing someone the judgement they deserve. It conveys something far more active, far more abundant. Biblical mercy is loving-kindness in action towards someone who does not deserve it. It is active compassion towards those who have no right to demand it, no credible claim to it, and no reason to expect it.

Though the driver did not ask Jo’s parents to forgive him, they approached him after the court hearing to assure him of their forgiveness. Extending mercy did not take away their pain, but they were able to offer it in such a profound and moving way because they had already received it themselves. Because they knew the merciful God revealed in the Bible, they were able to do as Jesus instructed: ‘Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful’ (Luke 6:36, niv).

And we can too. The world around us needs us to do so.

Anti-mercy

Most of us will never have to apply it at such a profound level as Paul and Charlotte, but there are areas where we all struggle to live up to this incredible call to be merciful, just as God is merciful. I know I do. It’s hard. When I pay attention to the attitudes and reactions in my heart, I find I am prone to being judgemental, not merciful. If your church ran a course on how to be more judgemental, I would not need to attend. It comes quite naturally to me!

Mercy, however, needs work. It needs cultivating. I have to push and be pushed to lean towards it. Left to my own devices, I default to judgement. But that’s not my job. Judgement is reserved for God. Jesus told his disciples not to judge. Instead, we are to be merciful. This is a wonderful invitation from Jesus to be like our Father – to carry the family resemblance and impact the world around us with a mercy that is unfathomable to most.

But to be honest with you, I do not always like mercy. Don’t get me wrong – if you come to my church and say, ‘Hands up who likes mercy’, I’m going to raise my hand. I like it when it is shown to me. But when I clock some of the attitudes that come out of my mouth and reactions that flash up in my heart, I realise I am not so keen on mercy when it is shown to those who, in my opinion, do not deserve it.

Because the thing is, mercy is not fair, and I like things to be fair. Mercy absolves people of the punishment they deserve (or we believe they deserve). Mercy gives people things they haven’t earned. Mercy doesn’t treat people based on what they have done or failed to do. I’m delighted when it’s applied to me, but not so happy when it’s applied to those who jumped ahead in life because they were born into the right family; those who cheated their way to the top and cannot be toppled; those who hurt me and didn’t seem to care; those who looked out for themselves to the detriment of others. I could go on.

Getting what you deserve – that makes sense to me.

Earning what you have – that makes sense to me.

But mercy is not a meritocracy.

Most of us like to believe that any achievement in our lives is down to us – that we had some part to play in our success – and that any failing is due to circumstances beyond our control. How easily we flip this when it comes to other people. We find ourselves believing that those who are less successful didn’t try hard enough. If all it takes to succeed is hard work and applying oneself, they must be architects of their own failure.

But the mercy of God is a great leveller. When we grasp it, we see that none of us deserves the things that matter: love, forgiveness, kindness… even life itself.

The world around us is sorely and sadly lacking in mercy. We see it in cancel culture, where no apology or atonement is sufficient to deal with our present or past sins. We see it in virtue signalling, where we race to let everyone know we are on the ‘right’ side, denouncing those who deserve vitriol from those of us who are enlightened. We see it in our politics, where nuance and cross-party collaboration have been largely cast aside, and those who disagree with us become our arch-enemies, in whom there is no good.

No wonder King David said he would rather fall into the hands of God than people, ‘for his mercy is very great’ (1 Chronicles 21:13; 2 Samuel 24:14). Conversely, Romans 1:21–31 concludes its long list of the behaviours that characterise the unrighteous with ‘they have… no mercy’ (niv).

And that’s what we see on display in the world around us: ‘no mercy’.

It is not that our culture simply lacks mercy.

It’s that it is anti-mercy.

Our fallen humanity pits mercy against justice and concludes that mercy minimises the harm done to us and requires us to deny or even hide wickedness. We define other people by their sins, assuming evil intent on their part, while defining ourselves by the sins committed against us, defending our own mistakes by claiming that our motives were good. Our culture tells us that apologies and attempts to atone for wrongdoings cannot be trusted. We are told that our treatment of others should be based on whether they deserve it, how they treat us, and if they are grateful enough. Social media reminds us not to cross an ocean for someone who would not cross a puddle for us. Self-care is the highest priority. Charity begins at home. Look out for number one.

Even to Christian ears, this may sound reasonable.

But it is not the Jesus way.

Followers of Christ are called to live lives of radical, countercultural, sacrificial mercy, shaped not by the world around us or the person in front of us, but by who God is and how he acts towards us.

We are called by Jesus himself to be merciful like our Father.

We are to be characterised by a mercy that reflects the heart of God – a mercy the world cannot offer.

The gulf between God’s mercy and ours is enormous. In many respects that is inevitable – he is God and we are not – but when it comes to being merciful, too often I look more like the world around me than the One who sent his Son to save me.

Before we figure out how to become more like our Father, we need to dwell deeply on his mercy towards us. It is only when we start to grasp that ’tis mercy all, from first to last in how God treats us, that we can hope to emulate him – or we even want to.

So before we get into what it means to live a life of mercy, we’ll use Part 1 to take a deep dive into God’s mercy towards us, reflecting on it from multiple angles. If you start to wonder why I’m devoting so many words to this, it’s because we are so slow to really get it. We fall quickly into imagining God is angry towards, displeased with, disappointed in or exasperated by us. We have taught ourselves to hear him sighing over us rather than singing over us. We need to marinate in his mercy until it reaches the deepest recesses of our hearts and minds.

In Part 2 we will start to explore why we struggle to comprehend the richness of God’s mercy. We are so conditioned by the way the world is, and by the way we are, that even when we begin to see how merciful God is, we’re slow to accept it. If mercy is not visible in the culture around us, and barely evident in our own hearts, can God really be that wonderfully kind, forgiving, relenting, restoring, patient, steadfast and compassionate? If we have never seen anything like it, perhaps it’s too good to be true. We tend to slip into seeing God as we are – making him in our image, rather than seeing him as he really is. Or we struggle to get our heads around the fact that some of his other attributes, such as holiness, justice and anger, do not negate his mercy but reveal it to be all the more astounding.

It is only once we have been wowed by the mercy of God that we can be wooed into a life of mercy. This starts with our attitudes, then our actions catch up. We need to start thinking like God, but thinking mercifully requires us to acknowledge and dismantle the ways in which our thoughts are not like his. So in Part 3 we will unpick some of our unmerciful thinking. It won’t be comfortable, but if we are willing to be honest and repent of where our thinking is far from God’s, it will be transformative. We will begin to see ourselves and others the way Jesus sees people, and this will take us on the exciting adventure of becoming more merciful.

In Part 4 we will turn our attention to what it looks like to act mercifully. Once we have started to understand how wonderfully merciful the Father is in all his dealings with us (yes, all of them!) and have begun to align our thoughts with his, we will be changed. We will cultivate not just hearts and minds that are merciful, but also hands, feet, homes and even bank balances.

When it comes to the God of the Bible, it really ’tis mercy all, from first to last. When we realise that, we will be radically transformed into followers of Jesus who become mercy-bringers to a world that so desperately needs to know mercy.

Part 1

‘A GOD MERCIFUL’

I started going to church because I liked a boy. I wasn’t thinking about becoming a Christian. I wasn’t interested in Jesus, the Bible or anything to do with God. I wasn’t seeking anything spiritual at all. I was fourteen and I had a crush on a boy, and that was it. But from my first Sunday at church, I was intrigued. Nothing about the service was what I expected it to be. I thought church was for elderly people. I was a teenager when I first went along, and the biggest surprise was that there were lots of people my age there.

I embarked on my journey into faith without really knowing what was happening. To be honest, it felt as if it happened to me, rather than being due to any intentionality on my part. In the six months between first visiting the church and eventually praying a prayer to accept Jesus as my Lord and Saviour, I struggled to figure out what God was like so that I could decide if I actually wanted to believe in, let alone follow, him.

Initially, I was wrestling with a god I didn’t even believe in. I had a very clear idea about what this imaginary god was like: he was uncaring, harsh and mean. I didn’t like him, and I was adamant that I didn’t want anything to do with him.

A few months later, having become a church-attending atheist wondering about faith, I stood in the middle of the vast local crematorium. As I stared at the little plaque marking my brother’s very short life and premature death, I asked, and argued with, God about what he is like. What sort of god lets babies die for no reason? And more than that, what sort of god lets a baby die knowing the deep and devastating ripple effect it will have on his family for decades to come?

Just as it is for many people, my path to becoming a Christian was fraught with intense questions about suffering, unfairness and death. And the truth is, I didn’t become a Christian because my questions were answered, or even because I’d made peace with them, but simply because I had started to believe – despite my best resistance – that God was actually real, and I couldn’t see a way back once I knew that.

Before I started following Jesus, I wrestled with God over his nature, his character. And thirty years later, that has continued to be the biggest struggle of my Christian life: